jgweed's Signature

I tell you what! Go down to the planetarium and ask them whether they were aware that Copernicus chose a heliocentric model because he had a mystical belief in the Sun as powerful astrological entity. You could also ask them whether they knew that Galileo's argument was suppressed for "social reasons". Its mathematical elegance was beyond question, but of course poor Galileo was politically naive, and publicised his model after agreeing not to do so. After that you might ask them where their display of "curved space" was, or where their display was which explained that space was never "empty" or that "locality of objects" was a statistical rather than an absolute concept.

"Veracity" in science is about the agreed predictive power and elegance of a model, and the crosslinkage of that model to other established models. Such "veracity" also has a range of applicability and is open to later revision . The heliocentric model was adopted for its elegance at the astronomical level. It was not/and is not used in terrestrial activities. It is relatively trivial at macro cosmological levels.

The naive realist assumes the model is a representation of "a reality" seperate from " a standard observer". He does not take into account that that observer is also a construction whose physiological and psychological limitations are ignored for axiomatic convenience. In particular, he does not take into account that the agreement about "veracity" depends on such an axiom.

either the Earth goes around the Sun, or the Sun goes around the Earth.

kennethamy wrote:

either the Earth goes around the Sun, or the Sun goes around the Earth.

Your physics book should tell you that neither is the case. Where do you suppose the centre of a two-body system is?

Well, either the Earth goes around the Sun, or the Sun goes around the Earth. Which do you think it is? I mean, of course, from the point of view of an astronaut in his space ship looking at the Solar system.

Which physics book is this?

that lowering the temperature to zero centigrade under normal conditions causes water to freeze

kennethamy wrote:

Which physics book is this?

The one which you claim tells you

kennethamy wrote:

that lowering the temperature to zero centigrade under normal conditions causes water to freeze

.

ughaibu wrote:

kennethamy wrote:

Which physics book is this?

The one which you claim tells you

kennethamy wrote:

that lowering the temperature to zero centigrade under normal conditions causes water to freeze

.

Good to hear, since that is just the book I trust. And now I have a further reason to trust it.

Your physics book should tell you that neither is the case. Where do you suppose the centre of a two-body system is?

NB. In traditional mechanics, all the objects in the solar system, including the Sun,"orbit" around a common centre of mass. It just so happens that this centre is calculated as lying quite close to the centre of the Sun. Binary star systems would be much more fun!

He doesn't understand that "lowering the temperature" and " freezing" are equivalent concepts in terms of kinetic theory. A fridge is a device for changing states of matter by heat exchange between bodies.

fresco wrote:

He doesn't understand that "lowering the temperature" and " freezing" are equivalent concepts in terms of kinetic theory. A fridge is a device for changing states of matter by heat exchange between bodies.

Not to mention the problem of defining "normal conditions" without incurring circularity.

By the way, I still am not sure. Do you, too, not think that the heliocentric theory of the heavens is true, and that from the view of a person on Earth, that the Earth does not orbit the Sun?

Quote:

By the way, I still am not sure. Do you, too, not think that the heliocentric theory of the heavens is true, and that from the view of a person on Earth, that the Earth does not orbit the Sun?

On the definition of "truth " as "what works in specific contexts" the answer is both "yes" and "no", but naive realists such as yourself do not agree with such a definition. You think truth is "absolute" but this has never been the case in science. Anybody who uses the words "sunrise", "sunset" or "the sun is at its highest" does not at that time/in that context take the slightest notice of the heliocentric model, and THAT'S the point you don't get, there's a context for every model and for every instance of the usage of "truth".